Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!texbell!nuchat!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: Strong/Weak typing, polymorphism, languages, OO Message-ID: Date: 2 Feb 90 15:15:21 GMT References: <1933@castle.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 17 In article <1933@castle.ed.ac.uk> nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) writes: > the downside is the fact that ML systems require fairly > large machines... > That isn't too much of a problem in Europe, I don't think; the US seems > to have a "systems" mentality to programming language design... It's not so much a programming language design issue, but rather that fairly powerful personal computers have been readily available for 10 years or more. The impression I've received from people in Europe is that Europeans tend to have fewer computing resources at home, so that languages that won't run reasonably on PCs are more acceptable. In the US, a language that doesn't run on PCs (as, for example, Smalltalk hasn't until fairly recently) is not going to get the popular support it might in Europe. You *have* to take a "systems" approach when you want to work with machines with a 64K to 640K of RAM, slow secondary storage, and clocks starting at 2 MHz. -- _--_|\ Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. . / \ \_.--._/ Xenix Support -- it's not just a job, it's an adventure! v "Have you hugged your wolf today?" `-_-'